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84] THE PHiLosoPpHY oF Eco-PotLIrics
towards the latter. Thiele, however, rightly points out that identification
and self-realisation are perhaps not the most apt concepts for the
expression of his aspirations. In any case, it is the Norwegian
philosopher’s indisputable achievement to have recognised that for
ecophilosophy the relation between man and nature is fundamentally
an ontological issue, not an ethical one: we need to rethink who or what
man is and how he relates to nature.
Some adherents of ecology find an original answer to these questions
in the writings of Martin Heidegger, despite — i.e., exactly because of
— the fact that in his view man is not one intelligent animal among
others and thinking is not coming to know, i.e., it is not a process
executed by the intellect. Rather, it is man’s mode of being.
Anthropocentrism thus gains a new meaning: thinking is the “stage”
(Heidegger is speaking of the clearing in the midst of being) where
things open to the Dasein — to use the expression of his letter on
humanism, they ,,acquire a voice”. Heidegger’s efforts are directed
against the subjectivisation of thought: language is not the property of
man; it is the event of being. Man’s destiny is to help the meaning of
being to speak. The world uncovers itself by language, while the other
existing things, being worldless or poor in world, merely live in it in the
physical environment which form their existence’s conditions of
necessity."
The characteristic of this strange mode of being, is that, continuously
surpassing itself, it achieves realisation precisely in this self¬
transcendence: it ,is” not; it ,happens”. ,Does not every essential
determination of man overreach him?”, he asks in his study on Schelling.
“Does man not exist in such a way that the more primordially he is
himself, he is precisely not only and not primarily himself? ...man is
experienced in what drives him beyond himself...”
Insofar as, following Heidegger, one views being’s acquisition of
speech as man’s ontological mission, the contradiction between human
freedom and the natural limitations highlighted by the eco-ethicists
disappears. “Freedom reveals itself as the “letting-be” of what is”, Thiele
59 Martin Heidegger: Letter on humanism. In: Martin Heidegger: ,... Poetically, Man
Dwells...”. T-Twins-Pompeji, Budapest-Szeged, 1994. p.117.
60 On whether or not and even how their “worldlessness” should be understood according
to Heidegger, see Vajda Mihály: Heidegger és az állat kísértete (Heidegger and the
Shadow of the Animal). In: Vajda Mihály: Nem az örökkévalóságnak (No to Eternity).
Osiris Gond, Budapest, 1996.
§1 Martin Heidegger: Schelling’s Treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom. p.163-164. The
Ohio University Press, 1985.